Milo Northwind

I wouldnt necessarily say that the faction that summoned Hydaelyn embraced 'change'. They simply rejected that it was okay to cultivate souls for the explicit purpose of feeding them to the Acian's new god. We also dont know the nature of the political landscape after all of this stuff went down. We know the 13 asians at least were tempered by zodiark, thus to some extent we cannot separate their desires from that of their god. The 14th may have been the spearhead for the Creation of Hydaelyn, and it may have been all the remaining population who stood against the convocation-- from these quests I frankly cant imagine that the average amaroutine would condone the murder of future lives, and Hydaelyn would have required a huge portion of the surviving people to create.

1) The darkness is the power you utilize, sourced from the "Abyss". Rather than a location, it's more implied to just be the darkness within ones soul. It is not an evil force, but it is volatile and emotional inherently, which makes it dangerous to harness. 2) The darkside in the MSQ appears in two incarnations, the first a form of frustration that everyone coens to you with their problems, and later, a manifestation of the WoL's pain and a desire to escape it. The most important thing to note is that these are desires are not external-- the WoL really does feel these things, and these supresses emotions are manifesting as a Darkside. In both cases, the darkside is not a bad thing, but if not accepted by the dark knight, they will overtake you. In the lorebook, it is stated that those who lose control in such a way literally combust in stygian, abyssal flame. In short, the darkside can overtake the person to commit heinous acts, yes, but some part of the person must want that. 3) The soulstone isnt strictly required to use the dark magics in lore. But if you dont have a healthy approach to dealing with your power it will probably hurt you or corrupt you! 4) No. A soulstone, contrary to its name, doesnt absorb souls. A soulstone is exposed to the experience and memory of its user over their profession, engraining memory, instinct and experience into the tiny grooves of the crystal. Soul stones can act differently depending on class-- in the dark knights case, touching the soulstone allowed the darkness within the WoL to manifest as a Darkside, which introduces itself as Frey (the name of the previous owner) but who later names itself Esteem. Frey isnt literally there, it's just using the name of the dead dark knight to further its goals. 5) the "fuel" of the dark knight is not entirely spelled out. While negative and passionate emotions seem a basic one, the darkside seems to embody the emotional states that the wielder others within themselves-- in the WoLs case, their irritation and frustration with the world, and their own grief. As stated previously, a dark knight is only stable when they confront these raging feelings and accept them. This doesnt mean they go away, just that they do not ignore or allow them to rule them. Of someone is using their rage to fuel their power, and that rage is eroding them as a person, I dont think that dark knight will last very long.

On question 4, the dark knight soul crystal doesn't do anything like that, though it seems to have a certain level of... autonomy? At least, it produces a Darkside of the WoL on contact. On question 5... We don't know? the lorebook states that if the Abyss isn't controlled, it will immolate the wielder in black fire, not unlike what can happen to weak Black Mages. But we haven't been given an example of someone who does not have good intentions; that is, someone who is sociopathic and already as callous and self-serving as the WoL's Esteem and then some. Will they just auto-immolate? We don't know. I have the feeling that the Dark Arts in the hands of someone like that would get very Sith-ish very quickly though.

You should actually be using a Water-aspected crystal to counteract an Earth-aspected aetherial imbalance. Earth and Wind do not interact or counteract. OOPS, I actually do use a water crystal-- the item is blue for that reason. Unfortunately I wrote this when tired, and my head is so fond of going to elemental opposites from other games.

To give a personal, RP version. My character Milo was, due to vague reasons, tied against the corrupted crystals of the Wall of Fire in Thanalan for a good half hour or so. The resulting exposure created a permanent alteration in his aetherial balance before he was finally able to get free. This disbalance manifests as a heavy bias towards the earth aspect, and has caused his eyes to become an odd, vivid amber shade. It also gives him frequent, crippling migraines which are now minimized by an expensive Wind aspected crystal tuned to counteract the dis-balance in his aether. I personally RP that such disbalances are otherwise very fatal or even more debilitating. Milo was very lucky.